by James White
Just to make sure that she knew he was joking, Carson laughed. It sounded forced even to him and his hands were shaking again. He dropped them on to his lap, surreptitiously rubbing the sweat off his palms, and went on, ‘But Pebbles will be at the club. After what I found out at the beach I don’t want to see him for a while. I--I’ve something to tell you about Pebbles, and the reason I’ve wanted to see him as much as possible.’ Instinctively he reached towards her and took her hand. It felt warm and smooth and firm, but completely unresponsive. ‘You’re a doctor, Jean, so I’m sure you will treat this as privileged information. You see, this thing has been troubling me for some time and I need expert advice ...’
He broke off because she was trying to pull her hand away. When he would not let go she said in a voice of quiet fury, ‘So you need a doctor, Joe? There are a lot of people like you around and I seem to run into all of them! Big, grown, healthy men who want round the clock medicare as well as a woman! Men so unsure of themselves that they want to hold a girl--if they want to hold a girl--by her professional ethics as well as love. I thought you might be different. You’re fit and you haven’t, until now, that is, started to complain about your mental problems. I thought you might be using your interest in John Pebbles and my psychiatric training as an excuse to get to know me better … ‘
‘I was, but I still need help with ... ‘
‘... But you might as well know right now,’ she went on furiously, ‘that I am not going to be anyone’s private doctor! My patients get care and attention and first-class treatment--I’m good at my job--but they get nothing else. Men who take me out because they think medical people are morally lax are bad enough. The ones who think that the only subject of conversation of interest to me is physical ailments, their physical ailments naturally, are worse. But the ones who know my background and want some cut-price psychiatry, the ones whose troubles are mental rather than physical and insist on baring the innermost, murky recesses of their souls--pretty normal, average souls if they only but knew it--these I find particularly ... disappointing.’
‘You may think me some kind of nut myself for feeling so strongly about this … ‘
Carson shook his head but did not speak. He had been arguing himself into telling her about the project and she had misunderstood to such a ridiculous extent that he did not know whether to laugh or yell at her to shut up. Instinctively he knew that both reactions would be wrong, and he cursed under his breath because he was being sidetracked again just as he thought he was getting somewhere. First the flying lessons and now Jean were diverting him from his original purpose.
‘... Had to look after two very sick relatives at night and strangers during the day,’ Jean was saying, quietly now and much more seriously. ‘My profession is a little like that of a policeman’s--I’m on call at all times. Professionally I’m very sympathetic and helpful and a much nicer person generally, and possibly you will prefer the professional me for the short time you choose to be my patient. So if there is something really serious troubling you, Joe, some particularly shameful crime you think you are guilty of ... ‘
‘I’m not guilty of any shameful crime,’ Carson broke in harshly, ‘unless you want to count high treason and counter counter-espionage! Let me get a word in edgeways, dammit! I thought, being the kind of person you are, that an appeal to your professional ethics would be better than waving the Official Secrets Act to keep you from talking out of turn. You see, there is a very secret project at Hart-Ewing’s, so important and secret that even the chief security officer is not supposed to know about it. Recently I have become convinced that its security has been penetrated. I’m not sure how, exactly, and that is why I need your advice.’
He hesitated, then went on carefully, ‘I’d prefer not to talk about it here and we can’t go to the club. Besides, it’s getting late and you must be hungry. I’m quite good with a can-opener, you know, and I wondered if we might go to my place to talk about it ...?’
‘High treason beats etchings,’ she said after a long pause. Carson chose to treat it as an acquiescence and started the car.
But she was curious enough to insist on talking about it during the trip back and, because his concentration on the traffic weakened the guard on his tongue, by the time they reached the flat she knew almost as much as he did about the project.
Some security man he was turning out to be.
The subject was shelved while he showed her his books, his tape-recorders, hi-fi, records, assorted pieces of home carpentry and, a little reluctantly, the pictures and trophies on his brag wall. Watching her anxiously he wondered whether she would show awe or complete disinterest, and which reaction would embarrass him most. Instead she looked mildly impressed and very interested--pathologically interested, she hastened to explain, because she could not fully understand the mentality of a man who seemingly got his kicks from climbing sheer rock walls while another nutcase of like mind photographed him doing it.
A little later she said that he looked funny in his fencing rig, even funnier wearing scuba gear and utterly ridiculous in karate pyjamas. She noted that there were no pictures of girls among his trophies and asked if this was because he was a gentleman or if he had simply been too busy winning medals to win girl-friends?
Carson told her that only someone who was not a gentleman would answer that question, and did that answer her question...?
In the kitchen he said madly unoriginal things about what a good wife he would make somebody, and the superficial, pseudo-domestic conversation continued until they had eaten and cleared away. Then Carson switched on the TV but turned down the sound, saying that he just wanted to catch the news when it came on in a few minutes’ time. He indicated the couch saying that it was the most comfortable thing in the room because he had not made it himself.
She sat down on the edge and Carson sat beside her. She looked at his arm lying along the back of the couch behind her and said, ‘What’s this?’
He said, ‘If you examine it closely you will see that it bends at the shoulder, elbow and wrist and that one end is fitted with five strong and highly flexible digits capable of a wide range of activities from stroking your hair to grabbing your slender, sun-burned neck and choking off your piteous cries for help. Or if you prefer to treat it professionally you may care to take its pulse.’
She said something very unladylike about its pulse, then lay back against his arm. ‘You’re full of surprises, Joe,’ she said quietly, ‘But what kind of man are you, really...?’
‘I’m just a magnificent male animal,’ said Carson sadly, ‘who is running slightly to fat.’ He turned towards her and slipped his other hand around her waist. Before she could say anything he bent forward and kissed her, long and thoroughly.
She tried to struggle free at first, but gradually she relaxed. He felt her wriggle into a more comfortable position, felt her free arm go around him and cool fingers on the back of his neck. By the time they broke for breath Carson was well and truly sidetracked and what was more, he did not care. But when he pulled her close again she shook her head.
‘Joe, you’re bending my rib-cage. We ... you wanted to talk about Pebbles ...’
Carson said something very ungentlemanlike about Pebbles.
Seriously she went on, ‘Are you sure John Pebbles is a spy. I only saw him once but, well, I liked him. It’s hard to believe that ... ‘
‘I’ve met him often,’ said Carson, still breathing hard, ‘and like him, too. But this is really important work Hart-Ewing’s is engaged in, and penetrating such a project calls for long and careful preparations and a spy with finesse. Perhaps the other side are finessing to such an extent that their spy does not even know that he is a spy. He might simply be a walking, strategically placed sponge absorbing information which means nothing to him until whatever conditioning was used on him to wipe his mind clean is reversed and they squeeze him dry.
‘But the project’s penetration might also require a spy with highly specialised
knowledge and training ...’
She was watching him intently, her face still only a few inches away, and Carson knew that if he was not careful he would get sidetracked again. He swallowed and went on, ‘Leaving Pebbles on the beach where the clinic people would find him, manoeuvring him into a boarding-house run by a woman whose son had ... Well, I’m afraid that I can’t be sufficiently objective about this thing to admire them for it. Nobody would think of looking beyond the clinic during the cursory security check we give lower grade employees, and he started at a very low grade.
‘But Doctor Morris said some very interesting things on the general subject of amnesia,’ he continued, ‘and I have a theory which needs your help to prove or disprove it. Morris said that an amnesia victim’s memory is helped back by surrounding him with familiar objects, events and people. Now, Pebbles’s progress was reasonably good so far as walking, opening doors, using a knife and fork and so on was concerned, but learning to talk and read took very much longer. Another point--an important one, I think--was that he started making real progress only after he became interested in the club and landed the job with Hart-Ewing’s.’
‘Familiar surroundings, do you think?’
Without waiting for a reply he rushed on, ‘I didn’t tell Doctor Morris about his meteoric rise from floor-sweeper to qualified flying instructor because I doubt if he would have believed me. Pebbles is physically perfect, he has unusually fast reflexes and a sort of ... of authority in the air which belongs only to top pilots. And now Tillotson, or someone else attached to the project who thinks they can use him, has wangled him an even more responsible job.
‘I’m pretty sure that it is a space project and he, if my suspicions are correct, is a very specialised spy. It makes me wonder what exactly he was trained to do before his mind was wiped clean. Astronauts are never born and they are made with even greater difficulty than top pilots. What will he do and say when his mind is switched on again? I want to know and to be able to take steps to protect the project. The only reason I’ve told you all about it and risked getting you as well as myself into serious trouble is that I’m convinced that we will find out in a very short time.’
He took a deep breath, then concluded, ‘Flying and the aerospace industry are familiar ground to him. Would you agree that he is simply going over that ground again, doing revision? Reading and talking came much harder to him. Could that be because he was learning a foreign language?’
He had her undivided attention, but suddenly he lost it--she was staring past him at the TV. He swung around to see that the news had come on and that a still of Wayne Tillotson was smiling at him out of the screen. He reached forward and turned up the sound.
‘...Chief test pilot of Hart-Ewing, who is thought to have come down in the sea just before three-thirty this afternoon. The latest information to be released is that he radioed that he was having engine trouble but so far nothing further has been heard from him. The wreckage of the aircraft has not yet been sighted.
‘Earlier this afternoon an unmanned Perseus series capsule burned up on re-entry when ... ‘
Carson switched off and sat back. They looked at each other without speaking. Jean’s face reflected the minor-key shock and sorrow felt at the death of someone who is known and liked without being a close friend, while Carson was remembering that frantic party when he had begun really to know and like Tillotson. He was quite sure, without knowing why, that Wayne Tillotson had died in the returning Perseus capsule and not in an imaginary aircraft whose wreckage never would be found.
Partly to take his mind off the manner of the test pilot’s death he thought about the probable effects on the project.
Tillotson had been a key man. At the very least the project personnel would be shaken, knocked off their stride, by his death. For the next few days their security might be less than tight and he might be able to take advantage of that ...
The door-bell rang.
It was John Pebbles looking shaken and very much off his stride. Someone--Dr Morris or Nurse Sampson or maybe Wayne Tillotson--must have told him that big boys do not cry, but he was close to forgetting everything he had been told as the words came tumbling out.
He was stammering and trying to talk before Carson had finished opening the door--about Tillotson, about Carson’s earlier invitation to the flat, about Carson’s absence from the club today, about Tillotson’s help over the years. Apart from the test pilot he did not know anyone well except Joe Carson--he had come here because he did not know what else to do. He babbled on about having nightmares and peculiar dreams and headaches. Mr Tillotson had mentioned him seeing a psychiatrist but he was afraid of going back to the clinic and not being allowed to fly or practise in the capsule ...
He broke off as he saw Jean Marshall, looked appealingly at Carson, then began to back out mumbling that he did not want to come in. Carson gripped his arm firmly and drew him inside.
‘You’re not intruding, John,’ he said, thinking that Nurse Sampson and Doctor Morris had been right--nobody could put on an act as good as this. His spy, who did not know that he was a spy, was really suffering and Carson felt himself torn between wanting to help console him and wanting to find out everything he could. He went on, ‘You’ve already met Doctor Marshall. There is no need to be afraid of her. Sit down and get it off your chest, and don’t worry about going back to the clinic or psychiatrists--a friend is as good as a psychiatrist. Just tell us whatever it is that troubles you, as well as Wayne’s death, of course. Jean won’t mind. She tells me that she is always on duty.’
‘Yes,’ said Jean quietly, ‘just like a policeman ...’
Chapter Fourteen
He had been building up a reputation as a gossiping old woman, and now that he had changed his lunch break to coincide with Jean’s and they began sitting together every day his reputation was beginning to change and be envied. If some of the people who were currently watching them had known that during the past three evenings she had spent something like six hours in his flat they would have been really envious, but without reason. Then, as now, she had been cool, pleasant and altogether professional.
‘I taped the conversation last night after you left,’ Carson said, ‘so you won’t have to rely on hearsay evidence from a layman. He really does have a complicated dream life, and the way he described some of the sequences was even weirder than the dreams themselves. If you could come over tonight and listen ...’
‘I’ll come,’ she said, ‘but I think we’re taking a risk being there together nearly every night he comes to see you. He’s innocent but not stupid. One of these nights he will either decide that he is intruding and not come back, or he will realise that our guilty looks are due to our talking about him rather than because we may have been doing something to feel guilty about..
Carson said, ‘Would you feel better if we did do something we should feel guilty about? I know I would.’
‘Be serious, Joe. What are we trying to do to John Pebbles? Get him shot, locked up? Right now he isn’t guilty of anything and we both know it.’
‘The way you should look on it,’ said Carson, ‘is that if we’re successful he won’t be guilty because we will have prevented him from committing a crime.’
‘I’m going to work late tonight,’ he added, ‘so don’t come until after nine o’clock. Tonight there is a project meeting and I intend doing a little eavesdropping. ..’
‘You’re taking a risk.’
‘Probably, but not a big one. Besides, I have to take some risks if we want to find out what exactly it is that we’re investigating. You do believe that we are investigating something?’
‘You are,’ said Jean coolly. ‘I am merely an advisor.’ Carson practised restraint for a few seconds, then said, ‘In a way this business is a little like coming in at the middle of a movie. By observing the actions and relationships of the characters it should be possible to deduce what has happened at the beginning of the film as it moves towards its climax. In a
sense we are moving in two directions at once, going simultaneously into the past and future. With Pebbles we have gone back very close to the beginning. If there is any order, any symmetry at all in the universe, we must be very close to the end ...’
‘Part of my advice,’ Jean went on as if he had not spoken, ‘is not to take too many risks.’
But he took a risk later that afternoon when he rang Simpson in Publicity with a rather odd request.
‘... My problem is this,’ he said after the usual preliminaries to asking a favour had been gone through. ‘I have a picture which I would like identified. It was taken over four years ago...’ That was a lie because he had taken it in his flat only two nights ago. ‘... and the subject’s name and nationality is unknown. He was probably a top airline pilot or test pilot, so his picture should have appealed in the aviation journals at that time or earlier--anything later than four years ago is no good because he may have been killed or taken to chicken farming since then. What I would like to know is if one of your clipping agencies is capable of conducting a search of four-year-old and earlier journals, home and foreign, for someone whose name and nationality I don’t know but whose picture I do have. I would also like it done quickly, and very quietly.’
There was a long pause, then Simpson said, ‘This one I’d better handle myself, Joe. Just send the picture...’ Suddenly Carson had a rush of second thoughts. But Pebbles, he told himself reassuringly, was only one of twelve thousand employees and Simpson was a very busy man. Even if he did more than glance at the photograph he would probably not recognise the man anyway.
‘Right away, and thanks,’ said Carson. He added, ‘I suppose you’re curious to know why I ... ‘
‘Joe,’ said Simpson very seriously, ‘I have had a very hard three days. The people responsible for releasing the news about Tillotson have not and will not, for some reason, furnish us with exact information on the type of plane he was flying or what he was supposed to be doing or, for that matter, where he was doing it. Nobody will say anything for the record and off the record they say they just don’t know, and the buck has been passed around so often it has gone into orbit.’